


Bluets

by HillaryEvergreen



Category: Billary - Fandom, Political RPF, Political RPF - US 20th c.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-10-19 17:48:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10644933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HillaryEvergreen/pseuds/HillaryEvergreen
Summary: Why blue?People ask me this question often. I never know how to respond.We don’t get to choose what or whom we love,I want to say.We just don’t get to choose.





	1. Blueness

_I don’t want to yearn for blue things,_  
_and God forbid for any “ **blueness**."_  
  
_Above all, I want to stop missing you._

 

* * *

 

 _July, 1973_  
_Cambridge, Massachusetts_

Hillary eyed the envelopes from where she sat. They lay, one atop the other, on the tile of the kitchen counter, crisp white on white on shiny blue. She had decided to wait until results from both bar exams arrived before opening them.

“Well, did you pass?” Bill had asked, calling her when his matching Arkansas results had arrived at his home in Fayetteville. He had asked mostly in jest - of course she'd passed.

“I’m not sure. Mine haven’t come in the mail yet,” she had lied easily, holding the envelopes in her hand. She needed time. She needed to detox herself from the sugary sweet taste of him in her mouth, oozing through the phone into her ear, right into her brain. Every phone call left her with a yearning ache. She couldn’t open those results under such conditions - a clear head would be required to wrestle with the decisions that would follow.

But two weeks had passed since both letters had arrived in the mail. She couldn’t put it off much longer. She felt the pull of their contents calling out to her.

The letters themselves wouldn’t contain a map for her life, a clear chart of her course. She didn’t expect to find it all laid out before her: _Yes, Hillary, marrying Bill Clinton is the right decision,_ spelled out in black and white. _Go to Arkansas. Be with him. Build a life there._ Or, perhaps, the opposite: _It will be a mistake_. _Don’t go. Whatever you do, don’t go._ No. The letters would not tell her that.

That was up to her. There was still a choice. She always had a choice.

She knocked back the last of the coffee in her cup, dropping it to the kitchen table with a thunk, harder than she meant to. Steeling herself, she scooted her chair back and strode the two steps to pick up the envelopes.

“Call me when they get to you. Let’s open them together,” Bill had said.

 _No_ , she thought. _I need to do this on my own._ The detox, the clear head that was required.

She picked up the envelopes, one in each hand, weighing them, squeezing them between her thumb and index fingers. Same weight, same thickness. She closed her eyes, as if she might be able to discern the contents through some kind of blind osmosis. Or change them. Influence them. But what good is influence when you don’t know what you want, anyways?

“This is ridiculous,” she said to herself aloud, dropping the Arkansas envelope, and ripped into the D.C. letter.

_Miss Hillary Rodham… Regarding results of the D.C. Bar Examination of Spring, 1973… Your score does not meet the required threshold…_

She dropped the paper like it had burned her. It floated to the ground, slipping back and forth gently through the air until it settled silently at her feet. _Your score does not meet the required threshold. Does not meet. Does not._ Failure. This was new. She wasn’t processing it fully - her second letter was screaming from it’s perch on the counter, overwhelming her ability to parse a proper reaction to the D.C. rebuke.

Her eyes flicked to the Arkansas envelope. She knew without opening it what it would say.

“You’ve got to come watch a Hogs game in the fall, Hill. I’ll teach you how to call ‘em.”

It was whispering to her. _Open me. Taste and see._

“Ever fucked a law professor, Miss Rodham? This is your chance.”

She picked it up.

“I miss you. I miss you more than I can say.”

There was still a choice.

“I love you so much, baby.”

She ripped through the paper and fished out the letter, thick and velvety.

_Miss Hillary Rodham… Congratulations!_

“Will you marry me?”

She always had a choice.

 

* * *

 

_August, 1973  
Charleston, South Carolina _

 

The inside of the prison rang with a cacophony of clanging sounds. Heavy doors closing, bars of cells slamming shut, metal cuffs snapping closed. The metallic smell matched the metallic sounds. A smell like bleach over metal over blood and despair.

She interviewed six boys. _Boys_. Young black boys, barely teenagers. They were quiet and respectful, but rarely made eye contact with her as she asked them questions.

She was sitting with the fourth of the day, a boy just barely fourteen years old.

“Tell me about yourself - did you grow up in Charleston?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Yes ma’am. Two little brothers.”

“I have two little brothers, too,” she said, trying to catch his gaze.

The caseworker had briefed her beforehand. _Raymond. Age 14. No education past third grade. Three incidents of shoplifting, and two assault charges, one against his mother’s boyfriend._

“They call me little brother in here, too,” he said. “The adults.”

“Why do they call you that?”

“They look out for me. They teach me how to take care of myself.”

“What kind of things do they teach you?”

“How to protect myself.”

“Protect yourself from who?”

He didn’t answer.

“What do they teach you?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “They show me how to fight back.”

“Fight back against who?”

He picked at the lip of the table, flicking at the spot where the vinyl peeled away from the plywood.

“Did anyone ever try to hurt your little brothers?” He asked her, peeling up the mottled plastic.

“There were bullies in my neighbourhood. They could get pretty mean sometimes.”

“What about your daddy, ma’am?”

She had been jotting notes on her legal pad, but paused now.

“My daddy isn’t around anymore,” he continued. “But mama’s boyfriend is. _He’s_ the bully in my neighbourhood.” The vinyl made a cracking sound as he pried it up from the wood base. “ _He_ could get pretty mean sometimes.”

“My daddy could get pretty mean sometimes, too,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say it. But she saw her own little brothers in this boy across from her, somehow, transported from the middle-class bubble of Park Ridge into this clanging prison.

“Did he beat them?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did he beat you, too?”

She swallowed. “Sometimes.”

“Did you hit him back?”

“No.”

“Well,” he said, looking up at her. “I did.”

-

“How was the first day of class?” She laid back on the stiff, starchy motel bedding. She could swear the pillowcases crackled under her head. She pulled off her glasses and dropped them to the bedside table, and rubbed her eyes with her fingers. She cradled the phone in the crook of her neck.

“Oh, it was wonderful,” he said. She could hear the bubbling enthusiasm in his voice. “They only just gave me the curriculum last week, but I managed through.” His accent was already thickening, having stewed in the wet hot Arkansas summer months.

“Tell me all about it,” she said, curling up on her side as he regaled her with a play-by-play of each lecture. His story meandered into tales of friends he was reconnecting with, good ol’ boys from Hot Springs and Fayetteville and every corner of the state. Stories like hot tea, honey-sweet and comforting. A voice to soak a hurting soul in. She was quiet, nodding along, running her fingers up and down the empty space next to her, wishing it was him, wishing it was his shoulder cradling her cheek instead of the plastic telephone.

“How is Charleston?”

“It’s… It’s as expected.”

“How many have you interviewed?

“Six boys today. Four yesterday.” She rolled to her back. “We’re building a strong case.”

It was her first case with the Children’s Defense Fund. A week in South Carolina, travelling between country prisons, interviewing young boys imprisoned alongside grown men. She thought about bringing up the conversation she’d had with the young boy about her father, but stopped short, changing the subject.

“I had to drive a stick shift today,” she said. Bill laughed.

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes. A lawyer down here lent me his car for the day. I’m sure the clutch is shot to hell now. Poor guy.”

“If I were there, I’d drive you all over Charleston.”

“Would probably better,” she said. “Cars all over the state would breathe a sigh of relief.” She laughed along with him. She knew what she was terrible at: driving, cooking, and singing.

“You’re so close,” he said suddenly. “Relatively.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re in the South. Come to Fayetteville before you go back to Cambridge.”

“I can’t, sweetheart. I need to be back in the office right away.”

“Well, I’ll come to you.”

“Bill!” She laughed, then sighed. “Honey, you have classes to teach. You’re not going anywhere.”

“I know. I just miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too.”

“Thanksgiving?”

“That’s right,” she said. “Ninety-four days.”

Bill groaned on the other end of the line.

“I wish I could un-know that number. It’s an eternity.”

“It’ll be over before you know it, sweetheart,” she said. But she wasn’t so sure. She curled up on her side again, tucking her knees to her chest. “Tell me again about the little house you’re renting,” she said, and he did.

 

* * *

 

_Thanksgiving, 1973  
Cambridge, Massachusetts _

 

Cambridge was shrouded in a cold, wet November morning when Bill arrived. He gave two quick taps at her front door, and it opened almost immediately. She stood at the threshold, taking him in. His thick wool sweater, brown pants and scuffed boots. A heavy suede coat hung around his frame, falling to mid-thigh, and fell open to expose the lambswool lining. His beard was trimmed close to his jaw, his blue eyes set off by the red glinting in his thick hair, the red of his cheeks from the cold, and hints of red threads in the knit of his sweater. He clutched a grease-spotted paper bag in one hand. A heavy leather bag slung over his shoulder. He cleared his throat.

“Good morning, ma’am. I’ve received a house call for a Southern law professor at this address. Would that be you?” He smirked at her, tilting his head down, and licked his lower lip the way he always did.

She didn’t answer. She reached out a hand to grasp a lapel of his coat, her fingers sinking into the lambswool, tugging him back over the threshold. He relented with a laugh as she snatched the paper bag from his hand and dropped it to the wooden bench by the door. He had a moment to drop his bag to the floor before she launched herself into his arms, wrapping her own around his neck.

She pressed her mouth to his, over and over, then across his cheeks, his nose, the rough of his bearded jaw. His arms found home around her waist, clutching her close.

“I miss you, God, I miss you,” he whispered, lowering his head to press his lips to her ear. The statement in the present tense conveyed the truth of it. He had been emptied of her, he needed his fill, and he was only just getting started making up for the deficit. He pushed his nose into her hair, lifting one hand to cradle her head, her cheek resting against his chest. He breathed her in, a smell like cedarwood and the vanilla-sweetness of her skin beneath.

“Let me get a good look at you,” he said, releasing her, stepping back. The door was still open behind him, forgotten, and the cold November air made her thick hair dance around her shoulders. He cupped her soft cheeks in his hands and absorbed her, bare faced and blue eyed as ever behind frames of glasses he didn’t recognize, her delicate chin resting on the collar of a thick cream turtleneck sweater. She broke into a big grin. She looked like heaven. She looked like home. He wanted to sink into her.

“What’s in the bag?” She asked.

“Muffins,” he answered simply. “I figured you wouldn’t want to make breakfast. Or, that you wouldn’t have any food in your fridge. Unless you’ve changed since we lived together, which seems unlikely.” She laughed her laugh, and his heart squeezed in his chest.

-

He watched the movement of her hips beneath her thick blue jeans as she moved around the kitchen, preparing a pot of coffee. He recounted to her the flight over, then back, to the days leading up to his trip, then into a broader recounting of the first three months as a law professor.

“I’ve brought their papers with me,” he said. “Thirty to grade before next Monday.”

“How… how are they?” She asked, striking a match to light the old stovetop. “The papers, I mean. Are they any good?” She had her prejudices. She could admit that to herself.

“Well, it’s not Yale,” he answered simply. “But they’re smart kids. There’s so much potential.”

She turned and leaned back against the counter, watching him. She knew he was talking as much about himself as the students. He saw himself in every Arkansas kid. So much potential, just needing a chance. But even he went to Georgetown. Even he left, before wandering back again.

“You’re too far away,” he said.

“I’m right here.”

“It’s too far.”

“The water will boil any minute,” she said, her elbows resting on the counter at her back. Bill stood and strode over, planting himself in front of her.

“I guess I’ll have to come to you, then,” he said, as she wrapped her arms around him.

They were silent for a moment. The water simmered on the flame, filling the kitchen with a soft buzzing. He wanted to bottle this moment up, distill it, bathe in it when he was back in Arkansas again without her.

She spoke suddenly into the quiet.

“I failed the D.C. bar exam,” she whispered into his sweater. He felt her shoulders heave, and she turned to press her forehead against his chest. He held her close as she cried against him, releasing her private shame, pent up for months. He kept his surprise quiet as she wept, rocking her gently from side to side. He didn’t need to ask why she didn’t mention it until now. “I’m so embarrassed.” Her voice cracked on the last word. Her shoulders heaved again.

He wanted to ask about Arkansas. He always wanted to ask her about Arkansas.

She pulled away as the kettle began to whistle, dragging her sleeve across her wet face, turning in his arms to pull the water off the flame. He pressed his lips together as her bottom brushed against his thighs, and stepped back from her as he tried to contain his desire and his pleading. _Come back to Arkansas with me. Please, please, please. God, I miss you._ He swallowed.

She collected herself with a wavering sigh.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Bill,” she said, pouring the boiling water over the coffee grounds and sliding the top of the french press in place. She was always a step ahead, answering him before he could ask. “ I don’t know if I’ll take it again,” she said, which was true. “But I’m not taking this is a sign, okay? It is what it is. I’m taking it at face value.” Half true. She pulled two mugs from a cabinet, carried them over to the kitchen table with the pot of coffee.

“You’re the smartest person I know,” he pronounced into the room, where the audience of one contained the only person that mattered. Hillary laughed, swiping her face again with her sleeve. He knew her better than to think he needed to reassure her of her own intelligence, but the pronouncement was more for himself than anything. He wanted her to know his admiration for her, for what it was worth. He needed her to know it.

He opened a few cabinets before finding a stack of plates, set one on the counter and piled it with the blueberry muffins from the paper bag.

“Well, that can’t be true. I’m sure you know a few people who passed the D.C. bar,” she deadpanned in response, taking a seat. Bill followed her, watching her fill the coffee cups, and she pushed one across the table towards him. “But, I’m okay. Really. No ego stroking needed.”

“Any other stroking needed?” He couldn’t help himself, the question slipped out before he could stop it. The way her hips swayed, the shape of her thighs. The sliver of slim belly exposed when she raised her arms over her head, her sweater lifting slightly. She laughed again, head back, mouth wide.

She recovered, flashing a naughty grin as she reached for a muffin.

“God, _yes_ ,” she answered him.

-

They laid together across the mattress, legs tangled together, hers pale and smooth draped over his own.

After a Thanksgiving dinner spent in a local Greek restaurant in downtown Cambridge, laughing and debating over red wine in little glass tumblers and salad dotted with fresh oregano, plates of saganaki and moussaka, they had stumbled back to Hillary’s house together through the drizzling evening under a shared umbrella. Within moments of closing the door, his hands were on her body, pushing her back against the wall, slipping up under her thick sweater, seeking out the hollows and curves he had been dreaming about for weeks. Their first round was fast. He couldn’t help it - he was overwhelmed by the shape of her climbing over him, the weight of her body on his hips, her hands caressing his skin and her own as he thrust into her with all of the lights still on.

He looked over at her head resting on the pillow next to his, and she looked back, cheeks pink and mouth swollen from the fervent kisses, from his teeth scraping her lips. He wanted to devour her, then and now. His eyes dipped down over her chest, rising and falling as she caught her breath, between her breasts and down the flat hollow of her stomach. He turned to his side to face her and dragged his fingertips across her soft skin, traced the pad of his index finger over the ridge of a hipbone.

They were rarely quiet together for long, except in moments like this, when he touched her worshipfully. A prayer of yearning wide eyes and parted lips, wanting her more than anything in the world. _Taste and see._

“Marry me,” he said suddenly. His eyes moved back up to meet hers. She looked back at him sadly.

“No,” she whispered. “Not yet.”

This was the third time. She never knew when it would be the last.

“Why not?” He didn’t sound surprised, the way he did the first time. Or angry, like the second. There was hurt in his voice. A desperation. “I’m not the same without you. I never want to be without you. I don’t want to be who I am when I’m without you.”

She watched him make his case to her, and his hands never stopped moving, stroking her from waist to hip to thigh.

“There’s no one else for me. There’s no one like you.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “I miss you so much.” His voice faltered. She reached a hand to his face and cupped his cheek. He nestled into her touch.

“I need more time…” She paused. She couldn’t explain to him what she couldn’t explain to herself. “I miss you, too. I love you.” Two things she knew for certain.

“I don’t want to be alone,” he whispered. “It’s so hard without you there. I don’t even know when I’m going to see you again.”

“New Years.”

“I don’t want to do this forever, Hillary. I need you.”

This wasn’t the first conversation like this. She felt his pull, the seduction. The choice ahead of her. She thought about the Arkansas bar letter. _It’s not a sign. I’m taking it at face value._ She knew how unbearable the yearning could become. How the hours of phone calls weren’t enough to fill the empty space. How no one else could come close. How much she wanted to stop missing him. How the only way that could happen was to be _with_ him. Was it still a choice, then?

“When I say yes, I want to be sure.”

“Why aren’t you sure?”

“I don’t know. I need to figure that out,” she said.

She leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’m going to turn out the lights.”

She slipped from his side and walked naked across the room. His eyes followed her as she flipped off the switch and they were enveloped in darkness. A hazy orange light filtered through the window from the street lights outside. In the blue din that enshrouded them, her pale skin glowed like a beacon.

“I love you,” she said, making her way back to him. “That, I am sure of. Let me show you how much.”

She kneeled on the end of the bed, crawling her way up his legs until her mouth hovered over his cock. She traced the length with the tip of her tongue and his head fell back against the pillow as he trembled and arched under her touch.

 

* * *

 


	2. The Deepest Blue

_‘If he hadn't lied to you,_ _he would have been a different person than he is.'_

 _She is trying to get me to see that although I thought I loved this man very completely_ _for exactly who he was,_  
_I was in fact blind to the man he actually was, or is._

 

* * *

 

 _New Year’s Eve, 1973_  
_Fayetteville, Arkansas_

 

On New Year’s Eve, he took her dancing at George’s Majestic Lounge, in what could  be referred to as ‘ _downtown’_ Fayetteville if one reduced the word to its minimum. She was wearing one of his button-up shirts, crisp white, tucked into a skirt that nipped in at her narrow waist. She had rolled the too-long sleeves up to her elbows, and had left the top three buttons open. When he dipped his head to kiss her, he could see the pink lace of her bra in the hollow between her breasts. The relaxed fit, the flashes of exposed skin, the knowledge that it was his own clothing wrapped around her body, was undeniably erotic to him. He had to fight the urge to slip his hands between the buttons, to pop them open as he held her close, hips pressed against hips, moving together to the music. Her champagne laugh set him on fire, head thrown back as he spun her around the floor, skirt fanning around her legs.

As the clock ticked towards midnight, Bill reached for her hand and pulled her out the door and into the cool Southern night. Rain fell in fat drops from a sky more inky than Hillary had ever seen above a city. She shrieked and laughed as a cold drop struck the nape of her neck and snaked down the hot skin of her back. She danced in the road, spinning, arms wide, so alive and young and free.

“I love you,” she said, laughing and breathless. “Come here.” She reached for him.

The university town was startlingly quiet beyond the thumping from the bar behind them, and Bill reached out to grasp her outstretched hand, lacing his fingers with hers, and pulled her further into the deserted street. The rain fell over them freely, soaking their cheeks and noses and shoulders. Hillary’s hair curled slightly around her hairline, falling in soft waves down her back. Bill looked down at her pink cheeks and wide grin, her lips smeared with red. In a sudden movement, he lifted his hands to cradle her jaw in his palms and rubbed his thumbs over her mouth, feeling the soft and damp of her lips parting to graze her teeth against his skin. She let him hold her there, a little drunk from the dancing and the beer and his touch, his proximity, his eyes so blue, blue, blue.

“I want to ask you again,” he said, as her tongue flicked against his fingertip. “I won’t, but I want to. I want you to know that.” She looked up at him, eyelashes heavy with raindrops. “And I want you to know that you are the most beautiful thing I have ever laid eyes on.”

She turned her head to press the softest kiss to the inside of his wrist. The tender gesture could have brought him to his knees, and so he pulled her close, clinging to her as the bar behind them erupted into cheers, ushering in the New Year.

-

“It’s a sign.”

“What is?”

Hillary lay on her belly on the honey-blonde hardwood floor, nose pressed up against the sliding glass panels spanning the length of the room, and through which one could see the rolling fields and hills beyond: cows grazing lazily in the small hollows, wandering down to the curve and curl of the banks of White River. The rolling grass was still green. She didn’t much relish her return to the knee-high snowdrifts that would await her coming journey back north.

Bill’s rented home soothed and scared Hillary at once. The calm and peace of it’s surroundings, nestled in the Arkansas countryside, were like a balm, coddling and soft as warm milk. She pressed her forehead to the cool glass, through which she could see no other human being nor sign of city life in all eighty acres that enshrouded them - all that empty space - and watched her breath collect in dewy clouds.

“John calling. It’s a sign.”

John Doar, who had been selected as the Special Counsel for the House Judiciary Committee,  had telephoned that morning seeking first Bill, and then Hillary, to join the impeachment inquiry into Nixon’s administration. Try as she might to play it off, her body thrummed with excitement at the opportunity that now awaited her in D.C.

“Well now, that seems to be a patently unfair conclusion.”

Bill, now planning his run for Congress, would not be joining her.

“What do you mean?”

“Failing the D.C. bar wasn’t a sign, but this is,” he said. “Seems mighty convenient.”

She was quiet. She dragged her fingertip through the fog on the glass, tracing a looping _B_. Her movement rustled the newspapers fanned out on the floor around her prone body.

“You know, I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re looking for any reason not to be down here with me.”

“That’s not it.”

She smeared her palm across the glass, blotting out her tracing.

“It sure seems like it.”

She lifted herself into a sitting position, turning to face him.

“Do you not want to me to take the job? Is that what you’re saying?”

“No, Hillary. That’s not what I’m saying. I wouldn’t have recommended you for the position when John called if that’s what I was saying.” She crossed her arms. He had a point, damn him. “Nixon being a corrupt bag of dirt is a sign of his own party’s moral decay, not some cosmic _goddamn_ message about your future with me. Don’t be ridiculous. You’re not a ridiculous person.”

She could hear the storm brewing in his voice, could see the click of his jaw from where he sat on the couch across from her.

“Why are you so angry?”

“Because I fucking miss you, Hillary. I miss you all of the time, every single moment of every single day you’re not with me. And I can’t bear it if there’s no end date to all of this _missing_.” He rubbed his hands over his face, cursing under his breath. He stood suddenly, crossed the room to kneel in front of her.  “It’s one thing if you’re up in D.C. for a few months on the inquiry. But I need to know what the end date is. I need to know when I’m going to have you again.”

“I’m sure we can work out a time for me to visit…”

“No! Not to fucking visit! To stay!” He cupped her face in his hands. “To be with me, for good.”

“I _am_ with you.”

“You know what I mean.”

She looked down, pressing her lips together. “It’s not fair.” She whispered it.

“I know, baby.”

“It’s always one or the other. One of us has to give.”

“If I win… if I win in the fall, neither of us will have to give up anything.”

She looked up at him again. She felt a pang in her chest at his phrasing. _Give up._ If it was right for them to be together, why did it have to be a sacrifice?

“You’ll go to D.C. You’ll join the inquiry. So what if it takes six months, eight. By the time fall rolls around, if I win, I’ll be up there with you.”

“And if you don’t?”

“ _Please_.” His eyes begged her.

“I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll think about it.”  He dropped his hands from her face and stood, turning away. He was quiet for a moment, but then, in a whisper: “I’m so tired of being alone.”

The anger had been sucked from him. Hillary rose to her feet and crept up behind him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her nose into the space between his shoulderblades, breathing him in. She felt him heave a great sigh, and then he turned in her arms and held her in return, and pressed a soft kiss into her hair.

“I love you,” she whispered into his cotton shirt.

Last night, as they danced in the street, she wanted to tell him she was going to stay. That she would throw everything in D.C. away just to be with him down here. She had come so close, feeling recklessly, overwhelmingly in love with him. As she kissed his wrist, as he whispered to her and held her close, she wondered whether anything but him really mattered at all.

“It scares me how much, sometimes.”

 

* * *

 

_May, 1974  
Washington, D.C. _

 

She climbed onto her bed, over rumpled sheets and her discarded coat.

“They refuse to make coffee. Can you believe that? One of them even asked me during a meeting - Hey, Hillary, can you bring us some coffee?”

She was one of two women on a staff of over forty lawyers working on the investigation.

“Tell them to shove it.”

She laughed. “I did one better. We made a sign.”

“Oh, God.” He was laughing along with her.

“It says, ‘The women in this office are lawyers, not secretaries. Make your own coffee.’”

“And what did they say?”

“Nothing, the cowards.”

She rolled onto her stomach, legs bent, swinging her feet back and forth like a teenager. She spun the cord of the telephone between her fingers as she scanned her borrowed bedroom. After months living alone in Cambridge, the room in Sara Ehrman’s Washington home was a welcome change. Despite a genuine appreciation for having space of her own, living alone had felt impossibly lonely. She knew, in the deepest parts of herself, that it was the lack of Bill in particular that made those months in Cambridge feel arduous and interminable. And the hole in her chest that hadn’t been properly filled since they lived together in their crooked little apartment in New Haven, with the tilted table and the newspaper in the walls for insulation, now remained excruciatingly empty.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

It was an emptiness that nipped at her heels, even in the face of the monumental case she was building with the team of lawyers. They were in the national spotlight. On the cusp of history. Fighting for the good of the country, fighting to uphold the Constitution.

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

She wanted to deny it, more than anything. It terrified her - all that emptiness, into which her life could seemingly collapse, no matter the scale of achievements and accomplishments she built atop it.

“This doesn’t mean you’re going to stop making coffee for me, does it?”

“It does. I am fully recusing myself from any coffee making duties until women in this country have full equality in all matters.”

“Damn. You make a great cup of coffee.”

“Tough shit, Clinton.”

Her eyes drifted over her belongings, piled in the corners of the tiny bedroom, much of them still stowed in boxes. Her temporary life, always on the move. She had pulled a few things from the crates - the photo of her and Bill at his beach house in Medford, the pair of them curled up on the porch swing together, her bare legs draped over his lap. A polaroid of the two of them in Fayetteville on New Year’s Eve, Bill’s arms around her waist, her head thrown back in laughter.

He was quiet on the other end of the line for a beat. She could hear him breathing. If she tried just enough, she could imagine his exhale dancing over her neck, across the tender space just behind her ear.

“Come here.”

She laughed. “Now?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, sure, I’ll be right over.”

“I mean it.”

She paused, twirling the phone cord tighter around her finger. She missed him. She missed him so much it sucked the breath out of her lungs. It left her mouth dry, parched, like she hadn’t tasted water in days.

“I’ll talk to John.”

“Wait - really?”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, see what he can do. See if I can get a bit of time away. A few days over the weekend.”

She could hear his grin through the line.

“Should I give him a call? I’ll tell him, ‘Now, John, Hillary will work _much_ more diligently once she’s had a good fuck-’”

“Bill! Don’t you dare.” They laughed together. She rolled to her back and played with the top button of her blouse. “You should tell _me_ a bit more about that thought, though.”

He hummed into the phone. It sent a shiver through her.

“Well, you see, all this anger over making coffee… I think some of that is pent up longing and desire for your devilishly handsome boyfriend, and not the feminist crusade you suggest it to be.”

“My, does that ever sound like something a man would say. I think you’re wrong, let it be noted for the record, but I’m willing to hear your case.”

“Now, Miss Rodham, are you asking me to talk dirty to you?”

“I might be.”

“Well, you see baby, I think it’s been far too long since you’ve had my hands on you.”

“Mhmm…”

“And I think you need it.”

The button popped open under her fingers. “I think you’re right, honey.”

Five months felt like a lifetime ago. These phone calls sustained her, kept the ache at bay. For a while.

“That so?”

She breathed the word to him. It crawled its way across state lines, a yearning thick as molasses, a word drunk with desire, loaded enough to send a chill down his spine:

“ _Yes.”_

Her fingers flicked the remaining buttons open, one after the other, until she was bare from chest to belly. She stroked her fingertips between her breasts, down to the waistband of her skirt, imagining his hands on her body.

“I think you need to be touched,” he whispered. “I think you need my hands up under your skirt, between your pretty thighs.” She sighed in response, her eyes slipping closed as she pictured it; as she thought about the way he had torn his own shirt from her body the last time they were together, how he had pressed her up against the wall in his bedroom, and the small purple bruises like butterflies that his grip had left on her hips in the morning. “But since you’re so far away, you’ll have to do that for yourself, won’t you, baby girl? Tell me.”

“Yes, honey,” she breathed, hiking her wool skirt up over her hips.

“Are you wet for me, baby?”

Her breath hitched at the question. A soft whimper slipped from her lips as she brushed her fingertips over the front of her cotton panties, feeling the slip of her aching sex underneath. She sucked her lower lip between her teeth as she slid her hand under the waistband, parting her thighs.

“Yes, _ohh_ -”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’m wet for you-”

“Say my name, honey.”

“Yes, Bill, I’m wet for you. Oh, _God_.”

“That’s right, baby girl. Just for me.”

Their words tumbled together, finding a rhythm with the rocking of her hips, the drag of her fingers against the skin like silk. Her cheeks flushed deep pink as her arousal blossomed, consuming her in waves. She tried to be quiet as she moaned into the phone, further inflamed as she heard Bill’s breathing grow heavier in response to his own touch, as he detailed for her every stroke of his hand, and everything he wished he could do to her.

She was briefly grateful for the separate phone line she’d decided to pay for when she moved in, and then at once, every thought was swept from her mind. Every doubt. Even, for a while, the emptiness.

-

She had a lovesick grin on her face as she slipped the huge headphones over her ears.

The Nixon inquiry had been greeted with a massive box of subpoenaed tapes, and Hillary was one of a few selected to listen to the recorded audio, jotting down key information about the crimes and cover-ups discussed between Nixon and his aides.

She had spoken to John earlier that morning, near-begging to have a single weekend off to visit with Bill down in Arkansas.

“He’s running for Congress, I hear.”

“That’s right,” she said, sitting before him, her hands clutched in her lap. “Looks like he’ll be running against Hammerschmidt.”

“Hmm.” He tapped his fingertips on his desk, which was always cryptically bare save for a blank legal pad and a single pen. “You won’t speak a word - not a _single word_ \- of this case while you’re down there?”

“No. Absolutely not. Of course not.” Secrecy was of the utmost importance.

“No leaks. We don’t have leaks here.” He eyed her closely.

“I understand.”

“Even if you love the guy, you tell him nothing. Don’t think I don’t notice how you get goofy after you slip away to call him.”

She flushed. “Yes, sir.”

He tapped his fingers on his desk again.

“Alright, Rodham. But you’re back here on Monday morning. And not a God. Damn. Word. To _anyone_.”

“Yes. Thank you, John.”

“You’re welcome. Now get back to those tapes.”

“Yes, sir.” She stood, smoothing her skirt, and headed back for the door.

“Oh, and Rodham-”

“Yes, John?”

“Tell him I wish him luck. He’s a smart kid.”

She nodded.

-

“It’s nothing, Hill-“

“It didn’t look like nothing.” She was stuffing her clothes into her bag.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going back to D.C.”

Bill had picked her up from Drake Field airport outside of Fayetteville late that evening, and they had driven directly to a dinner party with his campaign staff, among other local personalities. They didn’t take to her. She saw the way they had sized her up when she offered measured critique of their campaign strategy, but she was willing to let it slide. She was an outsider - to the campaign, and to the state. And she had learned quickly how closely interconnected the social and political circles were in Arkansas. They bristled at the Yankee girl criticizing their work, and she was neither particularly surprised nor dissuaded. She wasn’t new to the game, and certainly not to the rejection. She had come to expect it.

Kinder to her, however, had been Dean Wylie of the University of Arkansas. Bill had clearly talked her up beforehand, and he was impressed by her credentials. _We’ve got an opening at the university this fall,_ he said. _If you’re interested._ She’d weighed the offer. _If the inquiry ends in time… I’ll let you know. It might be last-minute._ It was the closest she’d been to committing to Arkansas. She had planned to tell Bill that night.

“Your flight doesn’t leave until Sunday.”

“I’ll get an early one.”

“No,” he said, reaching for her hand, trying to pull the clothes from her clutches. She stood, moving out of his reach. “Please, please don’t go. Please don’t.”

“I won’t be made to look like a goddamn fool, Bill.”

What she hadn’t expected was the gaggle of girls from the university. One in particular clung to him, following him around like a mewling stray cat. She wondered for a moment if the girl knew who she was; his girlfriend, all the way up in D.C. She had swallowed the jealousy, had assumed it was nothing at all, until a campaign staffer sidled up next to her at the table. _That one’s trouble,_ he had said with a wink.

“I told you, it’s nothing. That’s just how we are down here.”

“Oh, bullshit.”

The girl was young, and pretty, and bright-eyed. Falling all over Bill, batting her long eyelashes. She’d seen how he leaned close in return, how he licked his lower lip and tilted his head down to talk to her. How the girl flushed with pleasure at the attention.

“Please stay.”

“No! God, why would I want to? We just fight! We fight and we fight and we fight. Every single goddamn time I am here, we’re fighting.”

“Please, honey,” his eyes pleading and soft. “Please, I need you here. Everything's better when you’re here.”

She nearly melted then, but she knew she couldn’t give him ground.

“Oh, sure, when you’re not sneaking looks down some girl’s shirt.” She saw the flash of guilt in his face, and it said everything it needed to. There was an intimacy in the way the girl had leaned up against him. A familiarity that sickened her. The way she’d rested her chin on her hand and watched him talk. The way Hillary saw him watching her back.

“I’m exhausted, Bill. You’re always needling me about moving down here. And now this.”

“Because you won’t make a decision, Hillary! God damnit all.”

“So, you admit it, then. That this isn’t something I’ve made up. That this is because I haven’t made a commitment to move here with you.” He lowered his eyes. She knew she had him, but God, did she wish she didn’t. She was surprised she was able to keep upright as everything inside of her was breaking.

“Do you have any fucking idea what it would mean for me to be your wife down here? Do you think they’re just going to let me sit at the table with you? To make decisions with you? Shit, did you see the way they looked at me tonight? How do you think that’s going to fly if I’m your _wife?_ ”

“I don’t give a shit what they think.”

“You will when it’s the difference between winning or losing.”

“I won’t.”

“When they threaten to leave your staff because of me.”

“They wouldn’t.”

“Things are backwards enough up in D.C. I don’t even want to imagine what the fuck they’d do down here.”

“Stop.”

“In fucking _Arkansas_.”

“Stop it.”

“You know what Sarah said to me? She said she thinks I could run for office myself. Not that I want to. Not any time soon. But if I come down here, I shut that door forever. And for what? So we can scream at each other?” Her voice faltered, but she pressed on. “So I can watch women fall all over you? So I can watch you whisper in some blonde bimbo’s ear right across the table from me? In fucking _Timbuktu, USA_?”

“Enough!”

“If you don’t want to hear the truth, that’s your fucking issue, Bill. But I’m going back to D.C. tomorrow. You figure your shit out down here, but I don’t need to be around to see it.”

 

* * *

 

_June, 1974  
Washington, D.C. _

 

In the quiet, everything was magnified; the steady drip-drip-drip from the leaky old faucet, the sound of her breathing, and the lapping of the now lukewarm water against the robins egg-blue porcelain tub.

In a stunning turn of events, the worst had managed to get worse.

_Drip._

Bill’s daily calls had slowly dwindled after she flew back to D.C. Her own went unanswered more often than not by the end of May, and by the middle of June she needed two hands to count the days since she’d spoken to him. Calls to the campaign office, answered by the campaign manager Betsey, assured her he was busy on the campaign trail, executing the strategy Hillary had detailed through phone calls and annotated documents, scribbled maps, budgets reviewed, advising and making recommendations where she could from miles away.

_Drip._

In a desperate call to Paul Fray the previous night, she had finally managed to get through.

“Paul, what’s going on?”

She was met with quiet reassurances, but she persisted.

“I haven’t heard from him in days.” “After months, he’s suddenly gone dark on me.” “Please, Paul.” “I need to know.” “ _What’s going on?”_

_That one’s trouble._

When the truth came out, she’d wanted to throw up. To rend her clothes. To smash the phone against the floor, over and over until everything was in pieces.

_Drip._

Sara found her on the floor in her room, woken by the sawing of her open-mouth sobs, her cheek pressed to the rug.  She held Hillary in the minutes between her call to Paul, and Bill’s call back. She rocked her like a child, stroking her hair.

Sara couldn’t hold back her rage.

“This is who he is, Hillary. The man who did this to you. This is who he is.” She was aware of his wandering eye. His sticky-sweet charm. His startling blue eyes and smooth hands like a mousetrap. That rough voice that attracted women like flies to honey, a voice that got under your clothes, that filled your senses. “You have the entire world at your feet. Why rest yours at his?”

_Drip._

By the time he called back, she wanted to hurt him as much as he hurt her. She knew there was no honor in it, but she wanted him to suffer, no matter the apologies that rolled off his tongue. The bitterest taste of regret.

“I talked to Dean Wylie, you know. Last time I was down there.” She let the point hang for a moment. “I asked him about positions at the university.”

He’d let out a choked sob.

“He said they have a position available in the fall.”

“Hill…”

“I was thinking, if you lose in November, then I’d do it. I’d come down there and I’d be with you.” She heard him weeping on the end of the line. “But if you think I’m going to uproot myself for you now, you’re goddamn insane.” She was hanging by a thread. “I need to go.”

“Please, please, please,” he whimpered, over and over. She paused, almost losing her resolve. “I was afraid. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. Please don’t go. Please, I need you, please Hillary.”

“I need time.”

“God, please don’t do this to me, baby.”

“I’ll be in touch with Betsey and Paul,” she said. She wouldn’t let the campaign suffer from his foolishness. “But don’t call me.”

She held it together just long enough to hang up.

_Drip._

She slipped under the surface of the water, holding her breath. She could hear the clinking of the pipes and the creaking of the walls of the old house in her blue bathtub cocoon. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, her lungs ached for air, and still, she missed him.

 

 _Well then, it is as you please._  
_This is the dysfunction talking. This is the disease talking. This is how much I miss you talking._

 _This is_ **_the deepest blue_** _, talking, talking, always talking to you._

 

* * *

 


	3. All the Blue in the World

_I want you to know, if you ever read this, there was a time_  
_when I would rather have had you by my side than any one of these words;_  
  
_I would rather have had you by my side_  
_than **all the blue in the world**._

 

* * *

 

 _July, 1974_  
_Washington, D.C._

“Hillary. _Hillary._ ”

“Hmm - yes?” She looked up from the page she had been scanning over and over for the last hour. One of the inquiry lawyers stood in the doorway of her closet-sized office, hands on hips.

“Come on. We’re supposed to be in the conference room. Big news.”

“Shit.” She stood so quickly her chair tipped over behind her. “ _Fuck.”_

He watched bemusedly as she fumbled to put the chair upright.

“Something’s off with you.”

“I’m fine.” She brushed her hands over her skirt, straightened her jacket. “Let’s go.”

They made their way down the hall of the Capitol hotel, joined by the other lawyers who filtered out of adjacent rooms and into the flow, and filed into the large conference room.

“Everyone, please settle in.” It was John, speaking at the head of the long table, beckoning everyone inside. “Doors closed behind the last of you, please.”

After a few moments of shuffling, the room fell silent. John rarely pulled groups together, preferring to handle conversations compartmentalized person by person to prevent any one lawyer having too much information on the proceedings, and ultimately becoming a liability if they leaked.

“This will be brief. I expect absolute secrecy.” He eyed them all before continuing, his mouth set in a thin line. “Tomorrow afternoon, I will be presenting the articles of impeachment to the House Judiciary Committee-” there were some murmurs at the table. “Quiet, please. If some of you are surprised, it means we’ve done our job properly when assembling this case. I expect everyone here tomorrow morning, business as usual. Do not speak to reporters tomorrow. They will try to speak to you, but you keep your mouths shut. Are we clear?”

He eyed them all again, each lawyer one by one, before giving a curt nod.

“That’s all. Dismissed.”

_-_

She was and wasn’t surprised to see him outside the Capitol with a bunch of flowers clutched in his hand, looking hopeful and rumpled and heartbroken. The Washington sky broke indigo blue through clouds thick as cotton candy, cast golden as the summer sun set behind them. Even in the fading light, framed by the glorious skies and all of the beautiful monuments and buildings, everything around her faded except for him.

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. She wanted to hit him and shout and scream. She wanted to tear into him and make love to him and be held by him. To sink into him.

“Hi, Hillary.” He took a hesitant step closer, lifting the flowers in his desperate hands, holding them out to her like a holy offering. Her name on his tongue was the sweetest sound.

“Bill, what in the world are you doing here?” She registered the curiosity and hope in her own voice. How could she be anything but that, when he was here before her - that beautiful man, with his sensitive eyes and his bouquet of cornflowers.

“I had to see you. I have to see you. I just do.”

Hillary turned down her usual ride home with a fellow lawyer, who in turn eyed Bill with a smirk, noting how closely he lingered next to her, how his eyes never left her, even when he introduced himself. Instead, they rode in Bill’s rental car to Sara’s townhouse in silence. When they arrived, Hillary turned the key in the lock as slowly as possible, and they made their way through the door and up the stairs on tip-toe. Hillary pressed her finger to her lips.

“Do not make a goddamn sound,” she’d warned him as they walked up to the front door. “Sara will honest-to-God murder you in cold blood if she sees you here.”

The warning had sent a wave of deep shame through Bill. He knew that Sara knew what he’d done. He knew he deserved any violence she’d have inflicted upon him. But he obeyed her order, and was silent.

Hillary pressed open her bedroom door, directed him inside before her, and quietly closed it behind them both.

“I wasn’t expecting you. Obviously.” She gestured to the unmade bed, the pile of clothes on the floor.

A grin tugged at his lips, and below his mirth bubbled an overwhelming internal pull to climb onto the mattress, to press his face into the pillows, to smell her in the fabric. His eyes danced over the contents of her room and she suddenly felt exposed, unsure. His gaze settled on the photo of them at the beach house, on the porch swing together. He stepped over to it, lifting it from its place on the top of her dresser.

Hillary eyed him from the door.

“I’m going to take a shower. Make yourself comfortable. And seriously, not a peep.”

“Yes, love,” he answered, looking up from the photograph to catch her eye, giving a nod. Her heart skipped in her chest at the look, and his endearment, soft and sweet in the accent that made her swoon even now.

As she slipped out the door, his eyes returned to the photo in his hand, and then to the others crowded on the dresser. He brushed his fingers over the tops of frames and selected another. A long-haired Wellesley-bound Hillary only seventeen years old, laughing with her mother, arms around shoulders and heads together. Another with her high school girlfriends, chins propped on fists as they lounged on their stomachs in the grass, Hillary’s golden hair encircled with a crown of daisies. Then to the fourth, his favourite: Hillary hauled up over his shoulder with legs and arms kicking, wide white crescent mouth split in laughter, pink cheeks glowing and her long blonde hair fanning in the wind. His heart, his home.

His wild-hearted girl.

He lifted the photo and pressed a quick kiss to the glass before returning it to its place.

He gently brushed his fingertips over the other items on the dresser, taking stock of the things that touched her and were touched by her every day; the silver boar-bristle hairbrush, a pair of white barrettes, a pot of lotion. He unscrewed the lid of the last item and swiped his finger through the thick cream, rubbing it on the back of his hand and inhaling the sweet, peachy scent of _her_ . It sparked memories in his mind, sent his thoughts tumbling in vivid flashes, heady and undeniably sensual - the tremors of her soft, smooth belly, soothed by his palm as he tasted her, dragging his tongue against her swollen sex, her whimpers sending shivers through him like nothing else ever had or could. How her scent would envelop them as she cradled his hips between her thighs, and the way she would sometimes whisper in his ear, _God, I love you so much,_ as he would press himself inside of her body like silk. How her voice could get him so worked up he would nearly come right then, the feeling of her tight around him the closest thing to heaven he could fathom.

Bill swallowed, closing his eyes, willing himself sane as he heard the door open behind him. He turned and there she was, shoulders and chest bare above the towel wrapped around her body, skin soft and pink from the shower. Her hair hung damp around her ears, her eyes unhindered by glasses, so clear and bright and blue.

There was so much, a million and one things, that he wanted to say to her. More than anything, he wanted to drop to his face right there on the floor and beg her for forgiveness, beg her to take him back, beg her to accept him and love him and let him love her. But he was struck dumb, unable to move, unable to think or breathe or do anything but stare at her in awe, the purest thing he had ever seen.

She looked back at him and cleared her throat, hand clasped at her chest to hold up her towel.

“I suppose I should have folded the laundry…” She knelt on the floor, pawing through the pile of clothes, looking for something to put on, clutching items in her arms as she pulled through them. Her hand broke through the pile to the rough hardwood underneath, and as her hand brushed roughly over the floorboards she cried out suddenly:

“ _Shit!”_

She dropped the bundle of clothes to the floor and stood up, sucking her index finger into her mouth. She glanced at him and pulled her wet fingertip from between her lips, sighing.

“Splinter.”

Somehow, despite the moment with her finger in her mouth and the jolt it sent through his body right to his cock, he managed to find his voice, overcome by the desire to soothe her hurt.

“Come here, honey. Let me see.”

She walked over to him, hand outstretched. He took it in his own and pulled the tip of her finger close, knitting his brows.

“It’s a deep one. Do you have a sewing kit?”

“Oh, somewhere in these boxes…”

“It’s okay. Come, sit.”

He sat on the end of the bed and and she settled next to him. He pulled her hand close to his face, held between his own.

“Tell me if it’s too much, okay?” He said, before squeezing the fold of skin where the shard had embedded itself between his thumbnails. She winced, gritting her teeth, all of her anger and pain focused into the tiny point of wood lodged in her skin. “You holding up okay? It’s almost out.”

She nodded, wishing it could be as easy as this to pull all of the hurt from her heart and mind and body. As she watched his face - the sweet, concerned expression, and the way his eyebrows knit with absolute focus - she wondered if maybe it was.

With a final squeeze the splinter popped free, and he scraped it up with his nail.

“Whew, look at the size of that one. Makes me feel a bit inadequate.”

She rolled her eyes, but laughed. She couldn’t help it.

He pulled the pad of her finger between his lips, sucking gently. Her heart skipped in her chest as she watched him and as she felt his mouth on her skin, and her eyes slipped closed before she could do anything to stop it. They opened again to find him looking up at her with that heart-stopping look he had, his eyes so blue and so honest. He pulled his mouth away from her fingertip and took her small hand in both of his, folding it gently, wrapping her fingers into her palm, and pushed it back to her like he was giving her a gift. He pressed a tender kiss to her knuckles before he let her go. He was quiet for a moment.

“You should stay here. In Washington.” He said it suddenly, barely above a whisper.

She didn’t speak, but pulled her hand into her chest and looked at him.

“Seeing you come out of the hotel today, knowing you’d left behind hard day’s work and knowing that you’re going back to another tomorrow... Work that could change the course of this country... I don’t want to take that away from you, and I don’t want to take you away from more of those opportunities.” He pressed his lips together before he continued, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I love you. I love you so much more than I can stand sometimes, and I love you enough to know that you should stay.”

She was still quiet, just watching him speak.

“I’ve met a lot of people back home, and visited again with old friends, and they’re all wonderful. Some of my favourite people. But you, Hillary, my girl,” he cupped her soft cheek in his hand, “you are the best person I have ever known. And I don’t want to take you away from any chance or opportunity you have to share that with the world.”

It was true. He wasn’t trying to trick her, and he knew she was certainly too clever for such base manipulation.

“It’s not that I don’t want you, selfishly, for myself. God, do I.  Nothing became clearer to me, being away from you, than exactly how much I need you and exactly how much I want you, and love you, and how incredible you are.” His voice caught in his throat. “You are the very best thing.”

She looked down for a moment, cheeks flushing pink, and then back up to him.

“You are the best person I have ever met. And I did you wrong. And you shouldn’t be with me-”

“ _Bill._ ”

It came out in a whisper, but it was enough to stop him in his tracks.

She was still hurt. And unsure. But, God, the way he looked at her. She could still feel the lingering warmth of his mouth on her fingertip, felt the warmth coursing through her. Could feel the magnetic pull on every inch of her skin, dragging her towards him.

She looked down at his mouth, and eased herself closer, and he in turn lifted a gentle hand to softly tuck another damp strand of hair behind her ear. He traced his fingertip around the shell, across the sensitive hollow behind the lobe, and down the side of her throat. He paused there, his warm, broad hand resting on her bare shoulder, thumb stroking the delicate ridge of her collarbone.

She could see that he was waiting for her, unsure himself, until she pressed her palm into his thigh. And then suddenly his mouth was on hers, and his hands were in her hair, and he was pulling at the spot where her towel was crossed over her chest. She let the fabric fall from her body, inflamed for him already, with an ache throbbing between her thighs. His mouth traveled from her lips and across her cheek, and he pressed his hot mouth to her ear, lips brushing the skin as he whispered to her words of love and adoration and desire, and he moaned softly as he brushed his fingertips between her bare breasts.

A moan of her own echoed his as she tilted her head back, and his hand moved to cradle the nape of her neck as he dragged his open mouth across her shoulder, up the center of her throat and over her chin, before enveloping her soft lips with his own in a kiss that was liquid and aching and delicious. A kiss that sent his heart hammering in his chest.

He kissed her until they were both gasping for air, until her chest heaved and she was grasping at his clothes. She lifted herself enough to whisper back to him, and his mouth ran dry as she breathed into his ear, “Touch me, honey, please.” And he did, pressing her gently back onto the mattress, crawling down her body until he could lift her slender thigh onto his shoulder. As he tasted her again for the first time in months her body arched taut as a bow, her stomach pulled tight, hips rolling against his lips and tongue, moaning, forgetting to be quiet and not caring who would hear.

-

They curled up together after, tangled naked in the sheets. He stroked her hair, and she listened to him breathing, head resting on his firm chest.

“John says the inquiry should be finished in a month. In August, I’ll be out of a job.”

He let her continue, and let mentions of Arkansas hang in the air, unspoken for now. She was grateful for that.

“You hurt me. More than anyone ever has.” She felt him tremble under her, heard his breath catch in a quiet sob. “I don’t understand why you did it. It was… it was so wrong.”

“Hillary…”

“And you broke my heart.”

“Oh, honey,” his voice was faltering, thick with emotion. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” she said, looking at him with those eyes that had seen so much hurt, had faced so much injustice, and yet were still so soft and innocent and open to love and life. “And I forgive you.”

Tears streamed freely down his cheeks as he gazed at her in relief and pain and wonderment.

“I think that everything that’s wrong with us, can be solved by everything that’s right about us.” She reached up and brushed his cheek with her thumb. “I want to to work on this. On us.”

“Oh, I want that too, my girl,” he said, voice wavering. “I want that more than anything in the entire world.”

“I don’t feel…” Her voice trailed off as she grasped for the words that she had been trying to find for months - or, that had been trying to find her, that she had been scared to speak the truth of. That she was afraid to face, for all of the risk and vulnerability that they carried. And then, there they were: “ _Nothing matters when you’re not around_.”

He gathered her close, closer than she already was, impossibly close. He pressed his face into her hair, breathing her in, and she felt the heave of his body against hers as he openly cried against her.

“You are so good. You are so good, Hillary,” he whispered to her over and over, through his tears. “You’re my girl.”

And in the morning, after she let him out of the front door into the cool, quiet blue dawn, she crept back up into her room, knelt by her bed like she did when she was a little girl, and prayed to God.

-

“Was he here last night?”

Hillary stirred her yogurt in silence.

“He was, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Sara watched her. Hillary returned her gaze, already defiant, already ready for a battle.

“There are worse things than infidelity,” she stated simply, already knowing where the conversation would go.

Sara looked at her.

“Hillary…”

“It wasn’t love. It wasn’t real, what he did.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me.”

“And you’re going to take his word for it?”

“I am.”

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said, taking the seat next to her at the table. “You are brilliant. And capable. And beautiful. You have your whole life ahead of you. You could do anything. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

Sara searched her eyes, trying to understand.

“He could find anyone else,” Sara continued, her voice faltering. “We’re not going to find another you.” We. All the women with all of their hope, imagining her rising star if she stayed in Washington.

Hillary set her spoon down.

“I love him.”

“ _Why?_ ”

She paused, rubbing her fingertip over the surface of the kitchen table.

“We don’t get to choose who we love,” she said. She wasn’t resigned to her fate - she was determined. Her eyes were wide open now, and all fell into place: the messy, real way that it simply was to be between her and Bill, forever - irrevocably, deeply, madly. Sparking with life, a high-wire, the one thing that had upended her well-ordered existence. “We just don’t get to choose.”

 

* * *

 

 _August, 1974_  
_Washington, D.C._

She sat at the table with a group of lawyers, all men but her, in one of those dark, private dining rooms one finds at the back of D.C. restaurants if they know the right people. She leaned back in her chair and wondered for a moment what these walls had seen in their time.

One of the men stood at the head of the table, chest puffed up, making grand pronouncements with his glass of champagne raised high.

“Here’s to the great city of Washington - and to the cockroaches we uncover in the dark corners!” He stated grandly, and the men chanted together, “Here, here!”

Nixon had resigned from the presidency that morning.

“And to the brilliant John Doar, without whom those cockroaches would still be crawling!” More cheers, more lifted glasses.

The lawyers were drunk on champagne and their own historical impact, the room heady with men’s ambitions. Hillary restrained herself from rolling her eyes at each chorus of cheers.

“And one cannot forget,” he said, slurring his words, a few glasses in, “the Jill Wine Volner of the inquiry!” The men around the table laughed, heads turning to fix their eyes on Hillary. She looked back at them, giving a small nod and a lift of her own glass as they raised theirs again in unison. They’d come to respect her somewhat in her time amongst them, but she struggled to remain expressionless in the face of the jibe. It still stung, as much as she wished it didn’t.

She was briefly reminded of another dinner, in another state, with another group of men to whom she was an outsider. To all except for one. She closed her eyes and thought of him for a moment, her Bill, already looking forward to their evening phone call. The way he would laugh as she mimicked the haughty, self-congratulatory posturing of the lawyers at the dinner, lowering her voice to just the right pitch, miming the Yankee accents.

The remainder of his speech garbled into the background as she drained her glass, and felt the cool liquid turn to heat in her stomach. Bert Jenner gave her a nudge and leaned over to whisper in her ear.

“So, what’s next, Rodham?”

She shrugged.

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Oh, I doubt that very much,” he said, grinning. “You’ve got as much fight in you as the rest of the men around this table, despite everything.”

_Despite everything._

She fixed him with a cool gaze.

“Well, I’ve been considering becoming a trial lawyer.”

“Ha! Impossible,” he said, nudging her with his elbow. “You can’t be a trial lawyer. You don’t have a wife!”

She tilted her head to the side.

“What does that mean?”

"Well, who’s going to wash your socks every day while you’re in court? Who’s going to have your suit pressed every morning, ready for you when you leave? Who’s going to make your coffee, eh?” He laughed and motioned for the server, gesturing to their empty glasses. “I couldn’t do what I do without my wife. And you can’t show up to court in those rumpled shirts of yours, Rodham.”

“We’ll see.”

-

She called him at midnight.

“Hi, honey.”

“There’s my girl.”

“Big day,” she said dryly.

“No shit. My girl toppled a presidency.” They laughed together for a moment, and then  all at once, she said what he had been waiting to hear. What he was aching to hear.

“I wanted to let you know… I’m coming to you.”

There was a pause on his end of the line.

“To visit?” He held his breath.

“No. To live.”

“Are you joking?”

“I’m not,” she said, then hesitated. “Unless…”

“No, no, God, I didn’t meant it like that. I just… really?” He was pacing back and forth in his living room. He wanted to jump up and down. He wanted to punch his fist into the air. He wanted to hold her. He wanted everything, he didn’t know where to begin. “When? When will you be here?”

“Well, Monday afternoon, I think. I want to make it down for your speech.”

“You’re taking the job at the university?”

“That’s right.”

“But… why?”

“At dinner tonight, Bert told me I’d never be a trial lawyer without a wife. Something about not having someone to wash my socks for me. I figured, Bill’s so damn desperate to have me down there, he might just do it.”

They laughed together.

“I’ll have the detergent ready for you when you get down here, my love.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

-

They’d left D.C. early Sunday morning, with Hillary’s bike strapped to the roof of Sara’s station wagon. A thick haze settled on the banks of the Potomac, a moist and humid Washington dawn, and she turned in her seat to take one last look at the city as they crossed the river.

Hillary had made her decision known on Saturday. The announcement and conversation that followed was as near to an argument and she and Sara had ever come.

“Are you sure?”

“No. But I’m going anyways.”

“Hillary…”

“Sara - I know. I know it’s crazy, I know. But I’m going. I want to. I want this.”

“How are you going to get there?”

“I don’t know. Bus, probably.”

Sara had crossed her arms over her chest, resigning herself begrudgingly to what was to come.

“I don’t agree with this. I don’t condone this. But you’re not going to take a bus,” she said. “I’ll drive you.”

“You don’t have to-”

“No, no, I do,” she said. “All I ask is that you let me beg you to turn back every ten miles.”

She was serious for a moment, until Hillary started to laugh. And then she’d joined her, unable to resist.

“Alright. Deal.”

Sara held true to their promise all the way to Arkansas, asking Hillary every time they made a stop for food or gas or rest if she was sure, if she had changed her mind, if it was time to go back. She kept asking right up until they rolled into Fayetteville, where the Razorbacks were playing, and fans from the University were pouring into the streets, facepaint-spackled and raising up a cacophony of hog-calls. Sara had turned to Hillary, ready to share a horrified stare, but instead found her with her head hanging out the window, laughing and waving.

She tried to ask one last time as they pulled up to the field where Bill was holding his campaign speech, but Hillary was out the door before the car stopped moving, running and pushing herself through the milling people as though pulled by a magnetic force, hurtling through time and space just to be near him. When Sara finally found her in the crowd, her eyes were fixed on the man on the stage, nodding her head as though in a trance, all dreamy-eyed wonderment.

Sara, too, couldn’t help but to be pulled in by his voice and his charm, his engaging stories, and she couldn’t help but notice the same to be true of the rest of the crowd around them. But most of all, Sara watched the pair of lovers, and the direct line that crackled like lightning between Bill’s eyes and Hillary; the way his gaze always came back to her, no matter where in the crowd they strayed for a time.

“You know, for all of our challenges, Arkansas is truly a great state.” Sara watched as he honed in on Hillary. “And as someone once said to me, nothing that is wrong with us cannot be solved by what is right about us.”

To all observers, he talking about the state in which he was campaigning, but Sara knew his eyes and his words were all for Hillary. Everything for her.

And suddenly, it all made sense.

“My heart,” he said, with a nod that was mirrored by his beloved girl. “And my home.”

The crowd erupted in cheers, but he didn’t see anything except her.

 

 _But now you are talking as if love were a consolation. Simone Weil warned otherwise.  
'Love is not consolation,' she wrote. 'It is light.' _  

_All right then, let me try to rephrase._

_When I was alive, I aimed to be a student not of longing,_    
_but of light._

 

* * *

 

 


	4. Epilogue | The Color Blue

_As the interview wrapped up, David held her hand, leaned in and whispered something in her ear. Bill was surprised by the wave of emotion that hit him again. It wasn’t something like jealousy. It was jealousy. He had seen his wife lean close to other men before, had seen her kiss cheeks and whisper and chat with them. But tonight was made different by the way he was missing her. It was a clawing, clambering, throbbing desire. Eighteen months of longing for her was pent up inside of him, threatening to overflow. Seeing anyone else’s lips near her ear made him crazy._ __  
_  
_ _He wiped his palms on his slacks and looked at the clock, waiting for her._

\- Lemonade, [Chapter 10 | Resurrection](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9162709/chapters/21154934)

 

* * *

 

_January, 2000_  
_Washington, D.C._

 

She returned to the White House well after midnight, and was directed to the Solarium when she asked the usher where she could find her husband. She knew that he would be wide awake and waiting for her, and she made her way to him guided by the blue glow of the television set, illuminating the open doorway at the end of the long hall. As she walked, her eyes lingered over the walls hung heavy with dozens of photographs - her own face staring back at her over and over, most younger and, she thought, certainly more beautiful than now. Dozens, hundreds of blue eyes - her own, and her daughters’ and husbands’, so many family members’ - watched her progress down the hall. So many memories encapsulating her as she walked: Bill with his saxophone and a band, Bill gesturing grandly from a podium emblazoned with the Presidential Seal, her Bill, over and over, handsome and waving and smiling like a wildfire.

She was drawn like a moth to the blue glow before her, stockinged feet hushed on the white carpet. When she arrived in the doorway he was there, sitting on the couch, waiting like she knew he would be. The distance between them felt both miniscule and enormous at once. She remembered for a moment the first time that she had watched him from afar, across the way in Yale Law Library, tall and confident, talking to a friend but watching her. 

Tonight, he was alone. But he was still watching her.

She hovered in the doorway and leaned her head against the wall. He turned off the television, leaving only dim lamplight to illuminate him. Through the windows, the sky was inky black.

“Hello.” Her voice rang out into the hollow space between them.

“Hi, honey.”

Bill’s hands were still sweaty, his heart skipping in his chest as he looked back at her. He was absorbing her just like he had all those years ago, marvelling tonight at how lovely she looked framed in the doorway; the way the pink of her blouse peeked out from beneath her black jacket, opening to reveal her pale throat and chest. The spread of the peachy silk seemed incredibly erotic to him, enough to make him flush just looking at her. He wanted to cover her up, to hide her away for a bit longer, still feeling the lingering of his jealousy and, beneath it, a fear that she could yet slip away from him.

He watched her tilt her head, leaning her soft blonde hair against the door jamb, a faint smile lingering on her lips enough to round out the apples of her smooth cheeks. 

She was so beautiful. 

He swallowed, hoping to find the right words.

“You were wonderful tonight.”

From her place across the room, she sensed something in him - a sense of awe, of recognition. This wasn’t entirely entirely new to her, certainly; the two of them had experienced more than their share of awe filled moments with and for each other, watching the incredible successes and achievements pile up, each in turn propelled forward by the other. She had gazed on with pride and joy and had had that gaze returned, very much equals.

But tonight she realized quietly that she had been hungering for that awe for so long, and tonight she felt the thirst being quenched as his delight for her emanated out from him in waves. And tonight, it had been her on the stage, answering Letterman's questions, charming the host, spinning her tales and seducing the crowd, and Bill along with them. It was her eyes straying from face to face, connecting, flirting, laughing. And tonight, on her return to the White House, it was her eyes that needed to find their way back to him.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

And so they did. 

She studied him from across the room, like she had in the library all those years ago, and so many times in the years since. Compressed into that moment was the echo of so many conversations held, and the cloud of lingering doubt from so many eyes looking from the outside in, like photographs on the wall.

_ “He’s so… kind. So thoughtful. He treats me like I’m the most precious thing to him… When he’s not-” _

_ “...cheating on you.” _

_ “It’s more complicated than that.” _

_ “Is it?” _

_ “Yes! God, yes, it is! I mean, I’m not a saint, either! I get mad. I freeze him out.” _

_ “But you don’t cheat.” _

_ “No. No, I don’t. But I don’t always love him well. We have that in common.” _

A conversation now thrice repeating: with Sara, and with her mother, and with Diane. A conversation that always felt a waste of breath and heartache to her - one that led nowhere, one that left her maddeningly unable to articulate the inarticulable.

Because she couldn’t truly explain exactly how he had held her after her first miscarriage, or the third, cradled in his lap, rocking her until she fell asleep in his arms. The time she rested between his thighs in the grass on a southern summer night, her back to his chest, when he tucked a wildflower behind her ear and tenderly whispered into her hair. She couldn’t explain how he brought out the fire in her. And the softness. How he made her laugh, and how he had found that laugh deep within her, just when she was beginning to grow weary and cynical. How he had saved her, in that moment. She couldn’t explain the way he watched her when she danced, that look on his face like she was the only thing in the universe. She couldn’t explain exactly what it meant to her when he held her quietly all those years ago in her kitchen, when she confessed only to him her failure on the bar exam, and how he never demanded anything of her, nor showed an ounce of surprise nor disappointment, but simply touched her and let her be alive.

Or, rather, she could try to explain. She had done so over the years, uncovering pieces in fits of honesty and vulnerability, trying to make people understand. 

The way they would make love, and sometimes in the middle of the night after he would wake her again with kisses to her bare shoulders, pulling her from sleep and pulling her close to him, starting over again because he still hadn’t had enough of her.

She could try to explain, but she couldn’t make anyone  _ feel _ it. 

Her eyes lingered on his form, on the spread of his broad shoulders, the movement of his Adam’s apple bobbing at his throat as he swallowed, and she sucked in a breath, feeling those doubt-ridden conversations ebb away. She watched as he reached out for her then, from his place on the couch, and she went to him like a streak across the room. He was on his feet by the time she arrived in front of him, and she launched herself into his arms in a way she hadn’t in far too long. His arms wrapped around her waist, lifting as he held her, pulling her onto her toes.

He ducked his head to her ear, and his words rushed out on an exhale:

“My God, I’ve missed you.”

She could never make anyone feel the sweetness of it. To  _ taste _ it.

“I’ve missed you too, baby,” she whispered into his chest, turning her face to prop her chin there so she could look up at him.

“I’m so proud of you.” He released her waist and brought his hands up to cup her face, his thumbs stroking her soft cheeks. “Sometimes I still can’t believe you’re my girl.”

The sweetness of the awe and the innocence, even after so many years.

She felt a rush through her body as he held her tenderly, feeling lightheaded and high and giddy. She felt an ache right to the core, and the heat growing in her chest and thighs, the deeply human rush and thrum of blood from her heart pounding in her ears as she watched the most beautiful man she had ever touched, touch her in return with reverence, as though in worship. She watched as he slowly dipped his head to press his lips to hers, gently at first, and then with more insistence. Her hands clutched at his chest as he dragged his tongue along her lower lip, and her breath was a sigh when he followed the trail with the pad of his thumb.

Under his touch, her lips parted the way he loved, and she in turn, with hooded blue eyes and flushed cheeks, pressed her body against his, feeling him firm and strong and so alive against her. He sat back slowly onto the couch, and with his hands on her hips brought her with him so she was straddling his lap.

It had been so long. Hillary’s resolve, if there was any truly remaining, was shattered, and she twined her hands in his thick hair and leaned in to whisper hotly into his year, “I want you,” and Bill’s hips jerked in response as he crushed his lips to hers, connecting with open mouths and tumbling moans of deep satisfaction. His hand found its way to the nape of her neck, and he cradled her head in his wide hand as he kissed her as deeply, as thoroughly as he had been aching to over the interminable months. He gently tugged her hair, tilting her head back, and a rush of moans fell from her as he dragged his mouth over her elegant throat, tasting her skin, inhaling her perfume. 

Bill paused for a moment to take her in, the sweet surrender of her head back for him, the rise and fall of her heaving breast, the spread of her pink blouse revealing the mouthwatering hollow of her throat and the ridges of her collarbones. Hillary’s eyes opened slowly to return his stare, sucking her lip into her mouth, and Bill flushed deeply as he watched her eyes drag lower, down his chest and to the parting of his thighs, where his hard cock pressed against the front of his pants. He thought his heart would truly burst from his chest as she dragged her hand down over his shoulder and stomach, until her palm cupped him, feeling the jerk and pulse of his arousal. His head snapped back against the sofa, but she tightened her grip on his hair, pulling his head forward to look at her in the eye as she squeezed him firmly. 

He was beside himself, completely surrendered to her, almost ready to explode already. His cock hadn’t been touched by her in months, what felt like years, and even the press of her hand through his pants was sending him teetering to the edge.

“Baby,” he croaked, his hips thrusting against her touch, independent of his control. “God… feels so good…”

She squeezed his cock again, thumb rubbing over the head where she could feel the shape through the fabric, and he groaned again, “Oh, Hillary…” over and over. The pleasure she felt watching his response to her touch left her mouth wide, her breathing harsh with her own deep arousal. She swallowed, marvelling at her ability to make her husband weak, to make him ache and throb for her. Remembering the power she had over him. She released his cock, returning her hand to twine with the other in his hair, and shifted her hips so her crotch pressed firmly against his - the pressure from his arousal against her own sending a jolt of pleasure through her, and she hummed and sighed into his ear. He thrust up against her, turning his head to capture her mouth again, grinding against her desperately like they were young again, like they were just discovering each other again, the way they had so many years ago in her Yale apartment, hands and thighs pressing and touching and stroking through layers of clothing. 

He watched her in wonderment as she pulled back from him and dropped her hands to unbutton the front of her black jacket, revealing more of the pink satin blouse and the swell of her breasts beneath. He felt his mouth run dry, overcome by such a simple uncovering that he felt he hardly deserved to see, that overwhelmed him already, that left him afraid that he would come right then and there if she exposed any more of her soft skin to him. 

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight to his chest, and whispered in her ear.

“I love you, Hillary,” his words so tender and the sound of her name so sweet in his mouth that she trembled in his arms. “I want to make love to you.”

“ _ Yes… _ ” Her hips rolled in response, and he dropped his hand to her ass to stop her movements.

“Oh, God, honey,” his voice was low, raw, somewhat bashful. “But I won’t get to if you keep that up.” She turned to look up at him and smiled wickedly, lifting herself out of his lap. He froze as he watched her draw herself to her full height before him, standing between his parted legs, and began to unbutton her blouse. He bit down on his lip as she exposed her pale skin to him, button by button and inch by inch, marvelling at the well between her breasts, the ridges of her ribcage, the softness of her body. She let the blouse fall from her shoulders and slip down her arms, revealing the nip of her waist, and it took everything in him to keep from dropping his own hand to his throbbing cock. He held his breath as she sank to her knees before him, her small hands running up the inside of his thighs, thumbs converging to rub over his dick.

“Baby,” he groaned, “I won’t be able to…”

“Trust me,” she whispered, unfastening his belt and slacks, and he did, lifting himself as she dragged his pants down his hips to the floor, tossing them aside. She crawled closer to him, hovering over his lower body, and brushed her lips over his stomach. Her breasts pressed against his cock and he uttered a string of expletives as he felt their weight cradling him, as her open mouth slid down his clothed body and over his still-covered cock. He was going to fucking explode, he couldn’t stand it, her soft hands now pulling his briefs over his hips, following the path his slacks had already taken. 

It was nearly over as she gently held his cock at the base in her soft hand, and again when she looked up at him with her big, blue eyes, only breaking her gaze when her kiss-swollen lips sucked around the head, her tongue flicking against him. 

“Fuck. You are so fucking hot.” He was out of his mind for her.

She hummed around the head, and it was nearly over then, too, as her mouth fully enveloped him, slick and warm and delicious around his dick. He was moaning openly now, his hips thrusting with each movement of her head, thighs trembling as he tried desperately to hold back, to let this go on for just a bit longer.

“You’re gonna make me come, honey,” he managed, trying to keep his eyes on her, trying to remember every single moment, every single sensation. She caved her cheeks then, humming a soft “ _ Mmm _ ” around him, and as her lips wrapped tight around the base of his cock he was gone, head snapping back as he came hard down her throat, moaning her name.

His chest was heaving as she pulled his hand to her lips, kissing his fingertips. He looked down at her with hooded eyes, and she pressed another soft kiss to the inside of his knee.

“Come take a shower with me,” she said, licking her lips, and his cock twitched at her words, still swollen with arousal for her. She reached for his pants, guiding his feet to step into them, and stood to haphazardly toss her blouse over herself for the walk to their bedroom. 

They held hands as they tiptoed through the hallways, partially buttoned up but clearly disheveled. His eyes roamed her body as he followed behind her, absorbing the curve of her waist, her hips, the heart shape of her ass with each step. Mercifully, they encountered no one on their path, and they slipped into their bedroom unseen. Bill closed the door firmly behind himself before following her into the bathroom. 

When he found her there he reached for her, but she stepped out of his grasp, flashing another naughty smile as she unbuttoned her blouse again, and then her slacks. He sucked in a breath as she wriggled out of them, thankful that he had just come as he might have exploded at the sight of her smooth, bare thighs. Bill struggled to find any words at all as she turned away from him, giving him a view of her perfect ass in black lace, the sensuous movement of her shoulder blades as she reached behind her back to unclasp her bra. He stood stock still, frozen again as she looped her thumbs under the lace at her hips and slid her panties down her thighs, watching his expression over her shoulder. 

“You are so fucking perfect,” he whispered as she turned to him, beautiful and naked except for the pearls at her ears. 

“Come here, Billy, baby,” she said, crooking her finger to beckon him over. He managed to find his feet, to follow her lead as he always would, knees weak as she made quick work of his button-up and the cotton shirt underneath, her hands pressing into the bare skin exposed after tossing aside his clothing. She lifted herself onto her toes and kissed him, languid and hot, as she unfastened his belt again, shoving his pants down his hips, her bare breasts rubbing against his chest making his cock jerk, impossibly hard again already. She dropped her gaze to look at his arousal, where it pressed against her bare hip. “See, honey, aren’t you glad you trusted me?”

His laugh was cut off with a groan as she cupped his balls in her hand, giving him a gentle squeeze before turning away to run the shower.

He followed her into the stream of water, his entire being clouded with desire and pure lust as he watched the rivulets travel over her body, soaking her blonde hair, down her long neck and over her shoulders, over her collarbones, the drips collecting on her pink nipples. He watched the water rush between her breasts, down over her smooth belly and the delicate curls at the apex of her thighs, the incredibly feminine curve of her hip and the gathering of her narrow waist.

He ducked his head to press his forehead against hers, eyes slipping closed, overwhelmed. 

“Can I touch you?” It had been so damn long.

She responded with a touch of her own instead of words, grasping his wrist and lifting his hand to her breast. He sighed, his warm breath travelling over her lips, capturing them again in a desperate kiss. He turned his palm to cup her breast, flicking his thumb over her nipple, and felt a wave of satisfaction as her knees went weak, and as she stumbled against him.

Emboldened, he released her breast and pulled back, moving his hand to grasp her delicate chin. He watched her expression as his other hand slipped down her body, fingertips dancing over her wet skin, down between her breasts and over the well of her navel. Her mouth dropped open as one finger, between her thighs, traced the parting of her lips, sex-slicked and so fucking soft. Bill’s thumb pressed into her mouth, and she sucked the tip, moaning around his finger as his other hand gently parted her sex, his middle finger circling her swollen clit once, twice, and she trembled before him. She felt so incredible, and his cock throbbed, heavy between his thighs, as he pulled his fingers from between hers to taste her, sweet and intoxicating. 

“ _ Billy,” _ she whispered, holding her body against his, and he pushed her back against the cool tile wall, lifting her leg up against his hip, parting her thighs, pressing hard between her legs until the head of his cock rubbed against her dripping sex. 

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned, completely lost in her, in the way she raised her arms up over her head, the way her breasts heaved with each gasp, the way she was looking up at him, and how she was rocking her hips, her deliciously soft sex dragging over the tip of his aching cock.

“I want to fuck you in our bed, baby girl,” he growled into her ear, just barely able to restrain himself from thrusting into her right there against the wall.

“Please, please,” she whispered.

He managed to pull away, thighs trembling, slamming off the water and pulling her with him out of the shower. They stumbled together to the wide bed, not bothering to dry off, not able to think straight. He pressed her back onto the mattress and climbed over her, hiking her thigh up, clutching her hip, watching the head of his cock slip between the lips of her sex, teasing her swollen clit.

“Oh, baby, please,” she moaned, arching her back, desperately lifting her hips to him.

He fell to his elbows, his stomach pressing against hers, and dragged his tongue across her open mouth, tasting her lips as he slowly, slowly pushed the head of his cock inside of her, knowing he wouldn’t last long, trying to take his time. He watched her expression as he slid into her fully, groaning as her tight, hot body clutched him, as her teeth captured her lower lip, squeezing his dick in the way that drove him absolutely crazy. Stars exploded behind his eyes as he heard her soft moans, and he was overwhelmed and nearly overcome by the incredible feeling of her body wrapped around him, and the sounds she was making for him. He slid all the way out of her, and then pressed back inside, up to the hilt, until her dripping sex met the base of his cock, leaving him delirious with the pleasure of her body.

She twined her hands in his hair, pulled his head down so his ear was at her mouth, and sighed to him, “ _ God, I love you. _ ” He paused deep inside of her, inhaling sharply as she ground her clit against him, her breathing ragged against his neck. 

“You feel so fucking good, my girl,” he groaned, feeling her rock against him, watching the way her eyes fluttered as he thrust into her, her back arching again and again with each push of his hips. He prayed that he could hold on for her, nearly losing his resolve at the feeling of her nails scraping down his back as she tightened around him, eliciting a low groan from his mouth.

He lowered himself further, until he laid fully against her body, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He thrust into her, long and deep, and he cradled her head in his hands, pressing open-mouth kisses to her parted lips, her cheeks, jaw and throat, her shoulders, everywhere he could reach, returning again and again to her soft lips, whispering to her between each one: “ _ I love you _ ,” “ _ You feel so incredible _ ,” “ _ So beautiful _ ,” “ _ Baby girl, Hillary, honey _ .” They twined together, as close as they could be, and he circled his hips again and again, deep inside of her, feeling the hard knot of her clit slipping over his skin.

“Baby,” she was whispering to him, fingers twisting in the sheets, voice hitching with each thrust of his hips, “I’m going to come-  _ Ohh _ -”

He felt her become wetter, impossibly so, felt her begin to flutter around him in waves as her body became taut. He turned to watch her face as she came, cheeks flushed, so incredibly beautiful. Her body arched off the bed under his as her orgasm rocked her, and he held on, somehow, and as she trembled and shivered he thrust hard inside of her, the way he knew she loved. “ _ Fuck, fuck, fuck,”  _ she sobbed, squeezing her thighs around his hips. 

She looked back at him as she came down from her high.

“Roll onto your back, Billy,” she whispered, voice wavering, and he did, hauling her along with him. He was teetering on the edge already, but as she lifted herself up, he nearly came right then, absorbing her flushed body, her breasts bouncing with each lift of his hips, her parted thighs and the view he had of his own cock sinking into her. “I want to make you come for me, honey.”

She rocked back and forth on him, gripping his cock inside of her, and watched him as she brought him over the edge. He reached for her, clutched her narrow waist in his hands as he thrust hard into her, groaning through gritted teeth as her tight, silky sex rode him, as his balls tightened, and then he was coming, his own back arching as the delicious pleasure shot through his body. 

He dragged her down to rest on his chest, moaning softly as she squeezed his sensitive cock inside of her, his toes curling as aftershocks of pleasure rippled down his length.

“I love you, Hillary,” he said against the top of her head, brushing his fingers through her soft blonde hair, still wet from the shower. He rolled her to her side and followed her, another shock of pleasure as he slipped from her body, and kissed every inch of her skin that he could reach, whispering words of love and devotion against her shoulders and throat. 

And true to her memories, sometime in the small hours between them dozing off tangled up together, and the morning hours, he woke her with more soft kisses, pulling her from slumber so he could crawl down her body and taste her again, make love to her again, make her come again, never quite able to get enough of her.

She watched him doze off afterwards, curled up in his arms, his fingers drawing lazy circles over her back until he succumbed again to sleep. She marvelled at him in the dark, and watched him; his soft, innocent expression, his lips parted and chest rising and falling with each quiet breath. 

A man who loved her very much, though not always well. 

But he was the colour of the sunset over the Ouachita Mountains as they wound their way down into Arkansas for the first time, hand in hand with the windows rolled down, singing along to old country music on the radio of his station wagon. He was her tar-covered feet, bare and dirty from running around together on the beach, the smell of salt and summer in the July air. He was Mexico in the 1970’s, young and on fire, drinking shots of tequila just south of the border, watching a beautiful woman with almond eyes and olive skin dance on the bar in black and red and gold, eating spicy goats’ meat and rice, lips swollen from the chilis. He was the warm breeze in Bermuda and the kiss on her throat and the graceful and strong hands that had touched and held every single part of her. He was everything that there was, at the end of it all, when nothing mattered - not the politics, not business nor money, success nor failure, beyond the honesty or the lies, beyond anything that was or would be. He was the father of the best thing in her life, their darling girl. He was the delight at the end of the day and the sunshine in the morning and the blue, the deepest, deepest blue, of heartbreak and love and life itself. The answer to it all, the big question. He was all there was to be in the years to come, much later, when they would be older, and grayer, and still so much in love.

She sighed, her lips on his skin, all heartbeats and breathing and quiet. 

All that mattered, in the end. __  
  


_ Look for yourself, and ask not what has been real and what has been false,  _ _  
but what has been bitter, and what has been sweet. _

_ If I were today on my deathbed, I would name my love of  _ **_the color blue_ ** _ and making love with you  _ _  
as two of the sweetest sensations I knew on this earth. _

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading. <3

**Author's Note:**

> A story in three chapters and an epilogue, inspired by poetry from the brilliant Maggie Nelson.
> 
> The epilogue of Bluets will overlap with the Resurrection chapter from Lemonade.


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